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The Emergency Shelter
Learning Series
The Keys to Effective Low-barrier Emergency Shelters
Today’s Webinar
• Please note that all lines are on mute.
• Please pose questions at any time in the Questions box. We will try to get to as many as we can at the end.
• The webinar and slides will be posted following the presentation. Feel free to share with your staff and any other stakeholders.
Ask a Question
!
Emergency Shelter Learning Series
Anna Blasco, NAEH
Cynthia Nagendra, NAEH
http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/emergency-shelter
Emergency Shelter Learning Series
Goals• Strengthen shelter policies and services to improve
the housing outcomes for people experiencing homelessness across your crisis response system
• Implement a system-wide approach to ending homelessness that includes emergency shelters
• Align emergency shelters’ goals with the community’s goals to end homelessness
• Provide low-barrier, safe, and housing-focused shelter
Emergency Shelter Learning Series
Activities Understand the role of shelter in a crisis response system
Assess how your shelter currently aligns with the key elements to effective emergency shelter
• Implement key elements to effective emergency shelter
• Develop goals, action plans, and a timeline to make the shift to a low-barrier, housing-focused shelter model
• Track shelter metrics
• Establish benchmarks to improve outcomes
Emergency Shelter Learning Series
Technical Assistance
• Series of webinars
• Key elements to operating an effective shelter
• Self-assessments to assess your shelter
• Tools that your shelter can use to implement
programmatic, policy, and operational changes
• Guidance from shelters that have made the
transition to a new shelter model
Alliance’s Work
• Collected and documented effective shelter practices– Interviewed shelters across the country serving various
populations
– Looked at housing outcomes, length of stay, staffing, eligibility, rules, services
– Collected common elements of effective shelters
• Working with communities to guide their shelters’ transition from high-barrier to a low-barrier, housing-focused model that is better integrated into their community’s systemic response to homelessness
• Consulted experts in the field
“What If” Concerns about a
New Shelter Model• What if our clients aren’t ready for housing?
• What if we are “setting people up to fail” by putting them in housing too quickly?
• What if there is no housing available?
• What if we don’t have extra resources for these changes?
• What if staff quit?
• What if we need more training?
• What if we are de-stabilizing people who are trying to stay clean and sober in a shelter with people who are using?
Our shelter does not make people leave every morning at a certain time, stay
outside until evening, and line up for their beds every night.
Shelter Self-Assessment Results
Today’s Webinar
• What are the keys to effective low-barrier
shelter?
• How should shelters implement the keys to
effective low-barrier shelter?
• How should communities assess the
performance of emergency shelters?
What Are The Key
Elements of Effective
Low-barrier Shelters?
Shifting ShelterTHE
PHILOSOPHICAL SHIFTPhilosophical Shift
Practice Shift
Operations Shift
Housing First Approach
Housing First
• Homelessness is a housing problem
• Everyone is ready for housing now
• People should be returned to or stabilized in
permanent housing as quickly as possible and
connected to resources necessary to stay there
• Issues that contributed to a household’s
homelessness can best be addressed once
they are permanently housed
National Alliance to End Homelessness
• For most people experiencing
homelessness intensive services are
not necessary.
• Vast majority of homeless individuals
and families fall into homelessness
one time after a crisis and need
minimal assistance to return to
housing
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Housing First
Housing First in Shelter Practice
• Few to no programmatic pre-requisites to
permanent housing entry
• Low-barrier admission policies
• A focus on helping individuals and families
access and sustain permanent rental
housing as quickly as possible
• Supportive services are voluntary
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Emergency Shelter Agency
Self-Assessment• While 80% of respondents
either “strongly agree” or
“Agree” that the mission of
their shelter reflects a
Housing First approach…
“Our mission statement reflects a Housing First philosophical
approach to providing shelter, services, and housing.”
Emergency Shelter Agency
Self-Assessment• Only 58% “strongly agree”
or “agree” that their
shelter’s eligibility criteria
does not restrict access
because of the use of
alcohol, drugs, lack of
income, criminal history
background, or because
the person has a pet.
“Our eligibility criteria to enroll in shelter does not restrict access to
shelter because of the use of alcohol, drugs, lack of income,
criminal history background, or because the person has a pet.”
Safe and Appropriate
Diversion
Safe and Appropriate Diversion
• A strategy that prevents homelessness by
helping people experiencing a housing
crisis and seeking shelter to preserve their
current housing situation or make
immediate alternative arrangements
without having to enter shelter
Safe and Appropriate Diversion
• Diversion prevents homelessness for people seeking shelter by
helping them identify immediate alternate housing arrangements or
helps them stay where they are if safe and appropriate
• Diversion is problem-solving and solutions-focused
• Diversion is NOT a separate “program” but rather part of the entire
crisis response system
• Diversion should always be safe and appropriate for the person or
household seeking help
• Diversion should feel like a service, not like being turned away with
no assistance
• Diversion happens through coordinated entry process and/or at
shelter front door
Safe and Appropriate Diversion
• Engage people seeking shelter in a
solutions-focused conversation and
identify safe alternatives to shelter first,
instead of immediately doing an intake into
shelter
• Use a strength-based approach vs. a
needs-based approach
• Assist in connecting to community
resources to avoid a shelter stay
Immediate and
Low-barrier Access
Why Do People Avoid Shelters?
Immediate and Low-barrier Access
• Screening people in, not out
• Shelter is open 24/7
• People do not have to line up for a bed each night or leave early in the morning
• No drug and alcohol testing to get in
• No criminal background checks to get in
• Not requiring income to get in
• Not requiring “housing-readiness” to get in
• Allowing people, pets and possessions
Immediate and Low-barrier Access
• The most acute, highest need people are prioritized for shelter such as unsheltered individuals and families who are at greatest risk for severe health and safety consequences if not sheltered.
• Fill your shelter with those that need it the most, not those that got there first or can “comply” with the rules
• Do not require service participation to stay in shelter
Emergency Shelter Agency
Self-Assessment• 37% of shelters require
participation in services to
remain in shelter
“Shelter participants are not required to participate in services to
stay in shelter.”
Immediate and Low-barrier Access
• Serving households of any configuration including
couples without children, persons identifying as
LGBT, two-parent households, mothers with teen
boys
• Serving people using substances and/or with mental
illness, regardless of treatment compliance
• Configuring space to serve different configurations of
households and accommodate special needs
Equal Access Rule
What it requires:
Determine eligibility regardless of sexual
orientation, gender identity, or marital status
Must not discriminate against anyone because
they do not conform to gender or sex
stereotypes
Grant equal access consistent with a person’s
gender identity
Immediate and Low-barrier Access
LOW-BARRIER DOES NOT MEAN
• Not having rules or expectations of shelter
participants
• Allowing people to act in ways that are unsafe to
themselves or others
• Letting anything happen or letting everyone in
Simple, Safe, Behavior-Based
Rules• Treat everyone with dignity and respect.
• Use the shelter space in a respectful manner.
• Be a good neighbor.
• No weapons are allowed in the shelter, and
nothing may be used as a weapon inside the
shelter.
• Substance use is not allowed on the premises.
Housing-focused and
Rapid Exit Services
Housing-focused, Rapid Exit Services
• All services should be focused on exiting people
to permanent housing as rapidly as possible
• Shift the case management approach from:“What can I do to help you?”
to
“How can I help you to obtain housing?”
• It’s all about housing, not about “healing” or
“fixing”-From OrgCode’s “How to Be an Awesome Shelter”
Housing-focused, Rapid Exit Services
• At entry, start to focus on a “housing plan”
• Identify barriers to tenancy that will be
worked through in the housing plan
• Connect to housing resources
• Focus every in-person meeting on a quick
move to permanent housing
• Review and discuss the housing plan weekly
at a minimum
Emergency Shelter Agency
Self-Assessment• 65% said they create a
rapid exit housing plan
with clients within one
week of entering shelter
“Participants are assisted to create a rapid exit housing plan with
staff within one week of entering our shelter.”
Housing-focused, Rapid Exit Services
• Create a clear “housing message”
throughout the shelter
– “Shelter is not a destination, it is a process to
get you housed”
– “We are going to re-house you RAPIDLY”
– “You can be housed”
Housing-focused, Rapid Exit Services
Staffing
• Staffing could include housing locator
• All job descriptions require:
– Understanding of how to navigate tenancy barriers
– Knowledge of housing resources in the community
– Understanding of client centered/client driven planning
Budget
• What can we eliminate and use to pay for housing-
focused services/staffing?
Housing-Focused Messaging
“I tell my staff, ‘if
you’re not talking
about housing, you’re
having the wrong
conversation.’”
Deronda Metz, Salvation Army, Charlotte, NC
Are our services housing-focused?
• What services are provided in the shelter and what do they accomplish?
• Are there services that make obtaining housing difficult ?
• Which services are focused on obtaining permanent housing?
• What can we do to decrease the length of stay without timing people out?
• When does the conversation about moving to permanent housing begin?
• What do we need to change in staff and budget to rapidly exit people to housing?
• What can we change to make our environment and services housing focused?
Data To Measure
Performance
Data to Measure Performance
• DECREASE Length of Stay/Time Spent Homeless
• INCREASE Exits to Permanent Housing
• DECREASE Returns to Shelter
Data to Measure Performance
• These outcomes work together!
• Just decreasing the length of stay WITHOUT increasing exits to homelessness is NOT a good outcome
• Do not institute arbitrary lengths of stay in shelter to reduce shelter stays
• Rather, consider increasing exits to permanent housing and decreasing the length of time someone spends being homeless.
• The only way to end people’s homelessness is to help them obtain permanent housing
Emergency Shelter Outcome Metrics# Measure May
2017
1 Total number of beds
a. Total beds for unaccompanied individuals
b. Total beds for families
2 Total unique households served
3 Total households entering shelter
4 Total households exiting
5 Total households exiting to a permanent housing destination
6 Average length of shelter stay in days for all households exiting the shelter to any destination
7 Average length of shelter stay in days for all households exiting to a permanent housing destination
8 Total household stayers (those households who entered in previous months and did not exit this month)
9 Average length of shelter stay in days for all stayer households
CREATE AN ACTION PLAN!
• Review each key element
• Create action steps and goals
for each key element that you
want to accomplish in the next
3-6 months
Our goal is to provide shelter that:
Is immediately accessible to those who need it most
Is low-barrier without pre-requisites for entry
Increases exits to permanent housing
Reduces the length of time people are homeless
Develop Goals For Shelter Transition
Increase exits to PH by 25% over the next 3 months
Decrease all average LOS to 60 days by focusing on housing
long-stayers
Eliminate drug and alcohol testing in 3 months
Add housing-focused activities to staff job descriptions in 30
days
Train all staff and board on keys to effective shelter in 3 months
Increase shelter utilization if you have unsheltered homeless
people in your community by 20% in 60 days
Develop Benchmarks For Shelter Transition
What’s Next
Register for the next webinar!
When: Mid-June (TBD)
Learning How to Transition to a Low-Barrier and Housing-Focused Shelter Model From Shelters Who Have Done It